"Grab your camera and come quickly!” Mickey Mallory, Cedar Lake Church pastor, excitedly told me over the phone. “You’ve got to come see what the Lord has provided.”

Crossing the street, I saw a semi-truck backed up, with boxes being unloaded. But filled with what?

3ABN Kid’s Time was coming to do a Christmas special at the Cedar Lake Church, and Brenda Walsh, Kid’s Time producer, requested that we purchase poinsettia plants to decorate for the program. Jenny Whetstone, of Cedar Lake, talked to her dad, Mike Noonan Sr., who drives for a greenhouse, to see if poinsettias could be purchased at a discounted rate. The greenhouse management emphatically denied this request.

One morning, Mike's truck was loaded with Christmas plants for him to deliver. When the truck was full, they discovered that the load was too big to fit in that truck, so the plants were unloaded and reloaded into a much larger one. Evidently in the process of moving, too many boxes were loaded in the second truck. When Mike finished delivering the required amount, he discovered 23 extra boxes.

Calling the company, Mike was told that they didn’t want the plants, and he could throw them away or give them to a church. Laughing, Mike replied, “You wouldn’t sell them to my daughter for the church, and now you’re giving them to her for free! Look what the Lord has done.”

Thrilled, Mike phoned his daughter Jenny right away! “How many can you use?” he excitedly asked. “As many as you can bring!” was her reply. One week and two days before the program, 92 poinsettias arrived at the Cedar Lake Church.

“It’s so exciting to be a part of a miracle,” Jenny told me, with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes as she looked at all the beautiful poinsettias.

Once again, God has seen to it that His children have what they need, just at the right time.

Arlene Leavitt is the Great Lakes Adventist Academy assistant alumni/development director.